Kill Something Beautiful
by refracted
Summary: Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?


**kill something beautiful**

There was a time, you suppose, where you were happy.

Everything was much brighter then, as you remember. You were able to wake up on some mornings. You would never really leave your bed—you would just lay there, in gentle silence. The sun would illuminate you into different shades of the rainbow and you'd just look up to your window and see the sky twinkle with its brilliance. You would be wondering how things could be this perfect.

You had always thought that it was too perfect that something had to go wrong.

You were never the one to believe that something would last forever. You weren't exactly negative, just realistic. At times you could be idealistic, but it was always for other people. By yourself you have walls that are held up to infinity and though your hands give golden touches to others, you try to distance yourself as far away as possible. You never used to be like this, you thought. You used to be innocent, beautiful, open. Things just started to crumble down in your world once people had started leaving and such would happen with an often occurrence that all you would hear would be the slamming of the door.

None of that really affected you anymore, until _he _came into your life. Until he did make those mornings so warm and bright. Until he seemed to prove your thoughts wrong. He made you believe that things would last forever, that he would always be there for you, and that you would always love him, and he would care for you in return. Uchiha Sasuke was his name, such an unforgettable person.

You think back to those days. You could call yourself stupid and immature, but you knew it was none of your fault. You were the one that had tried in the friendship and he was the one who faded away. He was the one who left you crying with a mere, insufficient 'thank you.' You never asked for big things from people, but as you were never to see him for another five years, you thought that he could've at least gave you something more.

These days, when you do see him, he is nothing short of a familiar stranger. In reality, he is the same as everyone else.

When he passes you, he does not even cast you a second glance. He looks at you as if he is seeing through you, as if he hasn't even identified you at all, as if you didn't love him, as if you didn't used to be someone so very important to him. He seems heartless, careless and cold towards you. His one-word (or if lucky, one-sentence) replies to you are detached and uninterested.

You start to think, what happened...

Arguably, Sasuke was probably the person that you most put effort into. You had spent so many years which were, undoubtedly, focused on him. Originally it was to get his approval and acceptance. Then it came to the times where you had to protect him and offer him emotional solace. The remaining years were all trying to get him back—or more specifically, trying to get back what you had with him.

But what could you say? Your goals were completed, _weren't they_? Sasuke was back in Konoha. It could be worse, you supposed. Perhaps Sasuke could have never came back. However... regardless of that, you know it's all lies. You know that for the past few years, you've been living Naruto's dream. You've been living his life, his goal to get Sasuke back. In all truth, you never wanted him back as much as Naruto did. You never really formed a true bond with Sasuke like Naruto had. You may have loved Sasuke but you weren't ever _friends _with him.

And as you look at him chained up and _useless _against the cold wall of the solitary confinement in Konoha prison, you can't help but to not be surprised with how he still acts like he's invincible. Half of you wants to go over to him and smash his head in, but the other half wants to save him. Why should you save him, though, really? Why would you save someone who only broke you and additionally, tried to kill you?

At that, a shiver is sent up, electrifying your spine as you remember the numerous times where you had heard the chirping of Sasuke's killing essence of lightning behind you.

He's not Sasuke-kun anymore. You have to accept that. He's not the boy who always saved you, he's not the boy who cared for you, and he's certainly not the boy who made you think everything was so perfect. He's just Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke. Still unforgettable.

In a lot of moments that still breaks your heart, remembering how you were, and what you could've been. If things were different, you muse, both you and Sasuke would be different. Maybe he could've loved you. Maybe you could've been happy. Maybe you could've been walking down the aisle with a fantastic and stunning white wedding dress and he'd be at the end of such aisle with the expression you had too many times pictured. Your dream wasn't to bring back Sasuke. Your dream, inevitably, was to save him, _change _him... and have him love you, too.

Now, he's being sentenced to death. You can't save him anymore. You can't change him anymore. And he certainly won't love you.

You take a deep breath and brace yourself as you grace your gloves onto your frigid, icy hands. You push yourself against the door that you had been leaning against for so long, just thinking, just staring at him. You can't help but to revel at how powerless he really is in this situation. Some part of you definitely likes seeing this of him, seeing him so crushed and defeated as you are. Vengeance had always tasted so sweet, even if you were seen as the loyal and clinging girl to the lone Uchiha.

You come within a few metres of him and stare him down. He looks at you with his own callous glance, but he's still looking through you. You grit your teeth and bite your lip. Your jaw cages and pulls back so taut that it's painful. You freeze your body up, because your walls really do need to be to infinity when it comes to him. You give a small, sardonic smile as you speak.

"You are going to die, you know."

Something flashes through his eyes, but you assure yourself that it's nothing of fear or anguish. You decide that it's most probably disappointment in himself due to his sheer complacency. He would no doubt believe he was unstoppable. Nonetheless, he doesn't throw you with a blunt or hurtful reply. In fact, he says nothing, and you start to think that he probably has hit an all new low.

You sigh warily, taking out a kunai from your back pocket and twirling it around in your hand. You start to pace from each wall to the next, but you still face him, trying to see something, _anything. _You end up leaning down a metre away from him and your head comes towards him, so close that you can smell his scent which is still freshly peppermint though he is bludgeoned with dried blood.

You fix on an impeccable facade, though your eyes are crystallizing because they have become so hard, so adulterated. You purse your lips as you gaze at his. They are so pale, so thin. Your lips pull into a horrid grin that you are for certain makes you look sick. "I know you think you're higher than us still," you say, and it sounds like you're speaking more to yourself than him as you never expect a reply, "but Sasuke, you _are _going to die today. Even though you have been dead to the most of us for five years now, I thought I'd just let you know that. I thought I'd just tell you that if anything, you're lower than us now."

It is then that Sasuke smirks, one of sadism that can mirror yours. He chuckles, filled with seething poison. "What, Sakura? You aren't going to save me?"

_You aren't going to save me?_

"No," you reply, your voice soft, gentle, tantalizing. Your eyes are now sad, broken, ruined. At this change, Sasuke is no longer looking through you, but _at _you. However you know it is far too late. "I'm not going to save you, Sasuke. To be frank, I'm sick of you. Sick of being pulled down, worn down, by you." And at the exact ending of that sentence, you fling the kunai so accurately that it just glides past his temple. The kunai strikes into the wall behind him, surely leaving a dent. You trail your eyes from the kunai and then to him, almost laughing when his expression of superiority disappears immediately.

At the same time, the two divided parts of you meld together, mixing with such conflicted chemistry. You're laughing but your eyes are welling with tears and you know you still hurt. You know you still love him, because you are going to lose him today. You are going to lose the one person that you thought you never will, and goddamn, that _hurts. _He still is Sasuke-kun, no matter how much he changes. You'll keep living in the past and swirling yourself into hysteria and nostalgia that even when he continues to stare at you heartlessly as you sob, you can pretend that he isn't.

You can pretend that he never changed, that he's now wrapping his arms around you and telling you _Sakura. Everything will be fine._ like he used to.

You are now on your knees and shaking with wrecking sobs. You wrap your own arms around you as you realize that yes, he doesn't even care. Not even for the slightest fraction. You look up at him, as you, as _Haruno Sakura. _As the walking disaster, as the tragedy of a girl, as the poignancy. And at the very moment when you need him to look at you because you are shining as your light, he has transferred back to looking through you.

Your grasp his hand in yours and stare at him desperately. "Sasuke," you say, the words barely leaving your mouth, "Sasuke-_kun_. Please."

He knows what you are asking him of, so he fixes his eyes on you repetitively, trying. He looks like that all at the same time he is trying to block out all of his coldness and all of his memories. All of the pain that he really does feel, and that _yes, _he will be dead. He's trying to block out the rest of the world as he looks at you, because if he doesn't now, he never will. You don't know why he listened to you, but if you were to think positively, you would believe that there was still part of him left. Maybe he wasn't so entirely consumed by revenge and power. Maybe for once, he was letting go of his tainted perfection, his need to get everything right, his desire to have life just simple and staying the same.

Because you know that you are nothing of that.

When his wonderful onyx gems are fixated on you, you start to feel hope being injected into you. You are feeling alive, happy, _beautiful _again. The impossible light shines through the window of the prison cell and it just feels like the mornings you used to have. He doesn't retract his hand from yours and you can tell that if he could be, he would be sorry. You don't proclaim that you love him, because you know that if it was enough, it would be enough. Now it isn't nothing but a sentiment of the past, a phrase that was used when everything _was _fine.

So, you just ask the question that you've always wanted to know the answer to, though you are more than aware that it will fuel you with more angst and regret.

You bite your cheeks and muster the best smile you can. "Did you ever wish, Sasuke—" you trail off, choking within the sadness, "—even for just _once, _that everything had worked out differently?" _That everything worked out the way it was supposed to? That I still loved you more than I ever did, and that you still cared? That I still woke up with happiness because you were there? That we still spent nights and nights talking until the sun rose? That we could have achieved our tortured, crippled, damaged, _perfect _happily ever after?_

Did you?

After a few minutes when he doesn't reply, you feel yourself shaking again as you let him go. His skin rips away from yours and though everything around you turns cold, you still want to hold onto him forever. You stand up and stare at him for a few moments, until you reluctantly tread away from him, still feeling the tie between you both being pulled and pulled and pulled. You wish he would just say anything to just stop you. You turn on the door's knob and...

"Sakura," he murmurs, filled with richness, filled with respect, filled with _Sasuke-kun. _Filled with what used to be, and perhaps, what still could be. But he's dying, he's dying, he's dying—

"...Yes." _Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. YES._

You turn around slowly and smile at him. The sunlight illuminates the both of you in different shades of the rainbow and you feel full. He manages a half-smile and yes, _everything will be fine. _You decide to close the door that you were going to open and you remain there, laying against the door, just thinking, just staring at him. You suppose that you could give this a second try, that maybe, you could save him.

The calm spills in between and you walk towards him, sitting next to him and leaning on his shoulder. He is bleeding and beaten but he is surely still alive at this moment. You have to cherish everything you have now and live in the moment, because you are you. You do live everyone else's dreams and you do give your golden touch. You still feel your tears pooling down your cheek and finally onto his own skin, but he holds your hand in his and at that second, you are just together.

Just Sasuke and Sakura.

And there was never a time, you suppose, where you didn't love Uchiha Sasuke.

* * *

><p><strong><em>I wrote this on a whim. It's very rough, so I apologize. I'll probably have the time to edit it sometime or another.<em>**


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